ABOUT THE STUDY

The Asian American Man Study is the first and only annual survey of American men of East, Southeast, and South Asian descent. Since our debut in Fall 2015, our findings have reached more than 85,000 people and have been featured in The Atlantic and NBC's Asian America. We share our research freely to inform the public and ourselves about who we are and to contribute to the important national conversation about race, gender, and justice in this country.

ABOUT US

Jason Shen — Principal InvestigatorJason is a first-generation Asian American and CEO of Headlight, a tech hiring platform. Born in Suzhou, China, Jason moved to the US when he was 3, growing up in a suburb of Boston before attending Stanford. After nearly a decade in the SF Bay Area, he moved back east and resides in Brooklyn, NY.

Jason's Asian American Man story: "Up through my mid-twenties, I didn't spend much time thinking about how my race/ethnicity affected the way others perceived me or interacted with me. I had close friends who were Asian and those who were not. But over time, through conversations with many Asian American men, I've come to realize that our ethnicity cannot be ignored. And running this study is one small way I hope to add to the conversation on race in this country."

Alan Yang — Research FellowAlan is a second-generation Asian American and an undergraduate at Harvard University. He grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia.

Alan's Asian American Man story: "During my high school and college years, I became increasingly aware of my identity as an Asian-American and how it intersected and interfaced with other people's identities. I wanted to encourage conversations about the experiences of Asian-Americans both within the Asian-American community and across the country at large. I met Jason and was fascinated by the Asian American Man Study he was spearheading. By collaborating with Jason, I hope to shine a light on issues facing Asian-American men.

THE HISTORY OF THE STUDY

In the fall of 2015, Jason was walking through Union Square in Manhattan with his friend Shiyin, then a medical resident at a major hospital in New York City. They were discussing our experiences living, dating, and working as Asian American men and they wondered how lives compared to our peers. In that moment, they realized that despite living our whole lives as Asian American men, they didn't have a good understanding of what Asian American men face in this country.

Jason realized that needed data. He had never seen any kind of survey that focused on Asian American men. So he put together a simple 28 question survey and asked for help on Twitter.

I'm doing a survey to understand what it's like to live, work, and date as an Asian man in America. Please share! https://t.co/YJAXaFpX3n

It spread naturally over Facebook, Twitter, even Reddit, reaching hundreds of responses from Asian American men in just a few weeks. He crunched the numbers and wrote up the results a few months later on Medium. The findings were read by over 55,000 people in just 48 hours and earned coverage on Atlantic.com and NBC's Asian America.

Perhaps more important than the media coverage was the response from men themselves, saying things like:

I think this is a relevant survey and all Asian American men need to start fighting for more accurate representation.

I have never taken a survey regarding this subject before, it was intriguing

Thanks for collecting data on an oft-overlooked group.

These responses indicate that there has been too little attention paid to the concerns of Asian American men, something this annual study can help address.

In 2017, Alan Yang joined the team as a research fellow to help further this work as the team launches the 3rd edition of the study.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

How many people have taken the study?We had 362 respondents in 2015 and 497 respondents in 2016 (excluding duplicates and responses from people identifying as women)

Are your numbers large enough to draw meaningful conclusions?As far as I can tell, this is the largest study of its kind. It is reasonably balanced in terms of East, Southeast, and South Asian representation. I've done my best to identify when there are statistically significant differences.

It's not perfect by any measure. It overweights for well-educated, coastal, and US-born men under 35. And while there was good representation across geographies and industries, it is likely weighted to the coasts and to the tech industry.

​Still, my perspective has always been that everyone generalizes based on their own experiences. And if you're going to generalize about something, I think it'd be better to generalize off of a large sample of data, as long as you're aware of where it's drawn from.

Why couldn't you also include Asian American women in your study? Why the focus on men?In my experience (and in my personal life), many Asian American men avoid conversations around race or gender or diversity or privilege. They don't talk about it, they don't write about it, and they often don't even think about it. The experiences and beliefs of Asian American women are just as important as Asian American men. That said, I focused this study on men because I felt I was uniquely positioned to reach that community and to talk about issues that I felt were not being addressed more broadly. I am not against broadening this study over time, but right now, I'm keeping the focus on men, while intending no disrespect to Asian American women.

Do you have an agenda with this study?I did my best to remove my personal opinions from this study. Obviously my experiences and what I've learned inform the questions and areas of the study itself, but my goal has always been to present a balanced and objective view of the data. I have continued to refine the study each year.

Are you trying to speak for all Asian American men?This study is meant to add to the conversation about race in America. Every person's life story is one-of-a-kind and this study does not presume to represent all the views and experiences of every Asian American man. But hopefully, it gives us all a broader and more informed understanding of their experience.

What are other good resources to explore around this topic?Here are some books that touch on themes common to many Asian American men. There's an East Asian bent here, and I'd love to include resources that explore the Southeast, and South Asian experience as well.